Do you really want to learn English? We see many requests to learn English in the discussion tab. I think that conversation exchange is useful mainly when your level is high. This is just a piece of advice to them to improve their level.

GRAMMAR: look for archive.org English Grammar in google. You'll find many good books for free.

BOOKS: there are thousands of free audiobooks in
https://librivox.org

You can find the text of these books in
https://www.gutenberg.org/

Surely you can find a book that you like.

VIDEOS: In youtube you can find millions of videos which you can use to learn English.

So I think that it is easy to improve your level on your own.

What do you think of this testimony?

It is a video from the BBC. It's about a father whose son died in an heroic way. It is in Spanish, but with English subtitles. For those who are learning Spanish could be interesting:

https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/44333451/london-bridge-attack-spanish-skateboard-hero-s-dad-pays-tribute

Does this expression sound weird in spoken English? I have seen in some old books that the word "without" is used in the sense of "outside". I know it is correct, because it is not a mistake, the author used it several times. My questions is if I ask something like: "Is she without?", what a native speaker would understand? Thank you for your answers.

English pronunciation. Is it easy?

Some years ago I found the following poem. Probably now it is in internet. What do you think of it? Could you read it without mistakes?

English is tough stuff.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I. Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable;
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -think of psyche-
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough -
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

What English accent do you understand better?

My experience:

I have a lot difficulties understanding some few Americans, but most of them speak very clearly.
The same with British people though I find some problems understanding people from the north of England, and I can't catch a word from Glaswegians when they speak with their accent.
I have no experience with Irish people and Aussies.

I understand Swedes (when they speak English) much better than any other English native, and even better than Spaniards when they speak English. I have no problems with most Europeans, including Russians.
I have a lot of difficulties understanding chinese people English accent.

I do not remember that I have spoken with people from other places.

What is your experience?

El mejor modo de corregir Muchas de las redacciones en español se entienden bien (a veces no). En ocasiones tienen errores gramaticales que las correcciones suelen señalar acertadamente. Sin embargo, con frecuencia se dejan de modo que -aunque se entiendan y la gramática esté bien- hacen que alguna frase "suene" muy extraña.

Mi pregunta es la siguiente: Al corregir una redacción, ¿ayuda más rehacer la frase para quitar incorrecciones sin más, o es preferible hacer algo más elaborado y que evite formas extrañas de expresarse?

Entiendo que lo que suena extraño en España puede ser frecuente en algunos países de América y viceversa.

Supongo que pasa lo mismo en las correcciones de los otros idiomas.

A somewhat unbalanced English I begun learning English when I was twelve, many years ago. Four or five years later, I could read English Literature, and in fact I begun to read many books. I love reading books. At 19, I went to a place in England called Matlock, near Chesterfield and Buxton, in Derbyshire, where I spent 6 weeks. I was completely surprised because I did not understand a word, and people there told me, politely but crudely, that what I spoke was not English. I still could read and even write, but I felt disappointed. The fact is that I had no cassettes nor records to learn to speak, so I imagined a way to pronounce English words that was not exactly the real way of doing it. Two years later I abandoned English, and begun studying German. Again I could read. I went to Vienna, Austria and, to my surprise, Austrians understood me well, without any problem. That was forty years ago. It is a pity, but I forgot most of the German I learned. Still I can understand some conversations, but I have a lot of difficulties to speak. I also learned Italian because I lived two years in Italy. But without practice, I am at a loss with Italian people sometimes. I spent six months in California and, afterwards, I considered myself fluent in English. But, after twenty years, and without opportunity to talk to anyone, I have still many difficulties to speak. Now listening is no problem with so many means: Youtube, films, librivox, etc. But still speaking eludes me. English grammar is easier that German's or Spanish's. But to learn English you need to learn the four tasks (reading, listening, writing and speaking) in a sort of independent way. Thanks for reading.

Is the scottish accent very difficult to understand? I will live in Scotland for several months. I understand English well, but I looked in youtube for "scottish accent", and I am afraid that I will need to adapt my brain to these new sounds. My question is the following. Are the youtube videos somewhat biased toward the not-understandable, or it is not that bad?

It's not that easy to find a language partner I am looking for a native English speaker to exchange English for Spanish. Though I have found very interesting people, still I have conversation with no one. Probably it is my fault. I have little time, and my time is not the same as that other interesting people I spoke of. My aim is to speak. I can find in youtube or in librivox English well spoken, and I understand pretty well. But I need to speak. I will be in Scotland for some months from September this year, so I hope to have the opportunity there to speak a lot. Thank you for reading.